yeah, so the dog is,
was
and will be
my responsibility.
I’ll take full credit
for his death
as I take
full credit
for his life:
feeding, walking,
pulling off
unemployed ticks
from his spine, neck, head.
but really, neighbor, let’s be honest.
I’m a busy man, painting
for a roof over my head,
keeping entertained
to side-swipe
depression,
writing The Great American Short Story
(or at least one of them…
or at least trying to)
so my partner in crime
and starvation
will slip through the door,
o’er a lawn unprotected
by barbed wire fence,
concrete walls, floodlights,
alarms, sniper towers
and the like. he will
cross the street looking
or not looking
for cars darting past
(his reputation, in going on
four months, spotless)
to his equally witted ally,
your dog, also unleashed,
for a whiff of that
unwashed, crisp,
unemployed booty
running free…
and so dear neighbor,
I ask not for your forgiveness
(you could use it
perhaps
to go fuck yourself)
but merely some empathy,
empathy as I have given
to wild and possibly dumb
college neighbors,
hundreds, hundreds of miles
away, neighbors who drank too much
while I tried to sleep, neighbors
ill-likely to write The Great American Short Story
(or even try to)
and trust me neighbor, I should know.
I’ve seen those people
in bars, waving giant, blown-up,
mascot-sized dildos
and even one, or two (or three) parties.
and so neighbor,
I’m off, commence, if you wish, what you were doing.
goodnight.